Thursday 18 February 2016

Another Bedroom Blitz with Books


The other day, I took a look back through some old posts of mine, to remind myself of what I was doing this time last year.  The main project I had under way was my Bedroom Blitz.

It had taken me over a year to complete, after initially recognizing the need back in May 2013.  At the time it had become a dumping ground, especially when we had our basement refurbished to accommodate OH's office.

Here's a couple of pictures of it from that time.  Pretty depressing. It looks like I was a bit of a hoarder, or maybe I just hadn't found the right place for everything after all the upheaval.







Once the blitz was finished it looked like this on my side of the room.






Fast forward a year to the picture above and not a lot has changed, save that the corner is starting to get cluttered up again and the beauty station looks a bit of a mess. With our new bed arriving in three weeks (yeah, we've finally been given a date), I thought I'd go through this room again, to clean it in readiness and with a view to simplifying it further.

I've got my eye on a piece of furniture to replace the beauty station, but it's for sale on eBay, so I don't know if I'll be successful in obtaining it. It's the same design as the wardrobe and one of the chest or drawers. It would be great if I could get it at a reasonable price, as it would fit perfectly in the space between the windows.  It would mean a little trip deep into Kent, but we could make a day out out of it.

The bedroom project will run concurrently with spring cleaning the kitchen, so progress might be slower there than it would otherwise have been. I have been sifting through things periodically in the past year. Many scarves, clothes, bags and pieces of costume jewellery have been donated, plus numerous books read and donated.

When I did the last blitz, I counted that I had 90 books in the room, that were waiting to be read.  I thought I'd count them up again a year on.  There were 80, including the one one I'm currently reading. I did buy quite a few late last year from Poundland, received 3 for Christmas and have picked up a fair few from both Little Free Libraries, not to mention those I've borrowed from the local library in the last year, which have slowed progress reading what was already there. I'll be avoiding buying any more this year, but I can't promise that if I see any good ones on the shelves in Poundland, I won't break my resolve.

Talking of books from Poundland, I've just finished reading one of the ones I bought last year called 'The Age of Miracles'.  It's interesting.  Set in California, it's a fictional account of what happens to a family, community, country, the natural world, when time literally slows down and days become a little longer every day.

It tells the story of a kind of ecological apocalypse, where the birds, trees, plants all die, radiation seeps through causing people to only venture out during the dark hours and the end of the world is considered to be near.  Everyday life as inhabitants know it, starts to change quite dramatically. Strangely, I really enjoyed this book, although the story it tells is rather a disturbing one to contemplate. It just goes to show that sometimes it is definitely worth a gamble, as it certainly turned out to be more than worth the £1 I paid for it.  I'll now be passing it on to the Little Free Library for others to enjoy.

I'll keep you posted on the bedroom clean up progress.

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